Never come between a woman and her Oprah

Friday

Oct 1, 2010 at 12:01 AMOct 1, 2010 at 12:04 AM

Dave Bakke column: Regarding Kelly Wickham’s trip to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in Chicago, it is hard to know where to begin. The Twitter friend who turns out to be Oprah’s producer? Kelly’s passion for public education and how to fix it? Being in Oprah’s audience? Getting a chance to talk? Or what happened the night before the show.

DAVE BAKKE

Regarding Kelly Wickham’s trip to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in Chicago, it is hard to know where to begin. The Twitter friend who turns out to be Oprah’s producer? Kelly’s passion for public education and how to fix it? Being in Oprah’s audience? Getting a chance to talk? Or what happened the night before the show.

Yes, let’s start there.

It was 11 p.m. Let’s have Kelly describe it — “… I don’t remember anything after standing up and looking in the mirror watching my face turn completely white and pale. The next thing I recall is that both sisters were standing over me yelling at me to wake up …”

And this happens the night before what was to be the highlight of her 2010, if not this entire decade. Or not, but it was going to be big. Instead, she was on her way to the ER.

No, wait, let’s start with the producer.

A couple of weeks ago, Kelly, who is assistant principal at Lincoln Magnet School in Springfield, was at a dinner sitting next to a woman named Andrea. They had been Twittering each other, but this was the first time they had met in person. Andrea mentioned that she had read Kelly’s latest blog posting (mochamomma.com) about the new movie “Waiting for Superman.” It’s a documentary on the problems and solutions for the country’s education system, an issue on which Kelly is outspoken.

So, Andrea Wishom says, well, I am a senior producer for “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” We are going to do a show about that movie and, hey, why don’t you come to a private screening with us and then be in the audience the next day to discuss it?

Get. Out.

And so there Kelly was, in Chicago, purple outfit all picked out and a career’s worth of things to say and to ask regarding our system of education. All of the students she has known and all of their stories are running around in her brain.

“This means that I’ve spent the last two days,” she wrote on her blog, “spending my driving times to work and home having imaginary conversations with Oprah and the panel experts about this movie.”

Kelly’s two sisters would be in the audience with her. But as things turned out, they were “on” earlier than they expected.

Her sisters, Tracy and Erin, found Kelly passed out on the floor in the bathroom at Tracy’s house. Once Kelly regained consciousness, her sisters took her to two hospitals. They left the first hospital because there were too many gunshot victims waiting in ER ahead of her. Welcome to Chicago! Instead, they drove to St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields.

Kelly’s ribs were bruised and her sternum ached from the fall she took when she passed out in the bathroom. After a few hours of CT scans and X-rays, poking, prodding and examining her, doctors at St. James ruled out a heart attack. But they didn’t exactly know what had caused Kelly to pass out. The doctor did ask if she was nervous or excited about anything. Well, now that you mention it, doc ...

As soon as she was told it wasn’t a cardiac problem, Kelly’s thoughts turned to the show. There was still time to get there. The doctor said she was free to go if she had her heart set on it. Her sisters, Tracy and Erin, said no way, are you nuts? You aren’t out of the woods yet, sister. You’re staying in the hospital. This was going on at about 3:30 in the morning.

Kelly insisted. She begged. She said she would regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t get there. It’s Oprah. It’s education. Oprah, Education. Education, Oprah. When would a chance like this ever come again? Her sisters gave in.

She doesn’t remember getting ready for the show. But when the taping began, Kelly and her sisters were there, despite being awake all night, in Oprah’s audience. Kelly was wearing her purple outfit with the pain-killer accessories.

“I didn’t want to miss this. I had too much to say, and I wanted to hear what the people in the audience wanted to say,” says Kelly.

You can see what she said here. Kelly gives her comments and asks a question starting at 16 minutes, 12 seconds.

“I’m fine,” she said on Wednesday. “I have a rib contusion. It’s not broken, but it hurts. It’s hard to even get dressed.”

Doctors still don’t know what happened that night. Kelly has a hunch.

“I sent three kids at home from school that day who were all throwing up,” she says. “I’m sure I caught something that way. It’s hard to say what it was when I’m around 300 kids every day and 300 sets of germs.”

If this had just been a story about a Springfield woman who was in the Oprah audience, I probably wouldn’t have written about it. But the passing out, the hospital trip and the determination to get there at all costs made the story more unique.

The moral: Never come between a woman and her Oprah.

Everybody has a story. The problem is that some of them are boring. If yours is not, contact Dave Bakke at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. To read more, visit www.sj-r.com/bakke.

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